Square-Enix's direct sequel to the much-maligned Final Fantasy XIII manages to …

Final Fantasy XIII-2 takes place three years after Final Fantasy XIII. Vanille, Fang, Snow and Lightning are gone; either dead, encased in crystal or disappeared to unknown adventures. Serah Farron, Lightning's sister and Snow's fiancé, hides her pain while teaching the children of New Bodhum and helping her friends in NORA. Images of Lightning engaged in an epic battle haunt her dreams, but she knows her sister is gone forever.

What happened to Final Fantasy? The elaborate narrative and groundbreaking graphics of Final Fantasy VII turned the franchise from a significant cult favorite into a mainstream blockbuster in 1997. Since then, though, almost every Final Fantasy has struggled to find the correct balance between game and story, with CGI cut-scenes and anime clichés taking up as much time as the gameplay.

Final Fantasy XIII might have been the natural endpoint of that style. It sacrificed level design to story, with a long series of shotgun hallways dressed up with fancy backgrounds that give the illusion of depth and space. By foisting an unusual linearity upon a series marked by exploration, and by including one of the most obnoxious videogame characters of all time, FFXIII remains the most divisive entry in the series.

Final Fantasy XIII-2 feels less like a stand-alone sequel than a concerted effort to bring back fans disappointed by the last game. Somewhere within the bowels of Square-Enix there's a memo that details every major criticism of FFXIII. The sequel addresses enough of those points to make it feel different from FFXIII, but without making the game as a whole all that much better.

Side-quests make a triumphant return this time around, so rejoice if you love helping lazy people perform the simplest tasks. And you can walk around various towns full of talkative strangers who say little of interest. More importantly, though, the ability to roam throughout the time stream and revisit previous levels opens up the world a bit, recreating that classic sense of Final Fantasy adventure even without a standard world map.

Final Fantasy XIII-2 takes place ten years after Final Fantasy XIII. Serah and her mysterious, sword-wielding partner Noel Kreiss, reconnect with an old friend who's also been impacted by Lightning's absence. Together, they reminisce and investigate a weird piece of technology destined to play a key role in the fate of the world.

The world of FFXIII-2 is more expansive than that of its predecessor, but the goals are as focused. You travel throughout time, fixing paradoxes that pop up throughout the world of Gran Pulse at various times after the fall of Cocoon, in an effort to set the one true timeline right again. You won't stumble into surprising situations or ever be at a loss of where to go, but this time the game gently nudges you in the right direction instead of forcing you down a straight line.

The gameplay progresses in the finest Final Fantasy tradition, the story spurred on by those chattering nonplayer characters and dramatic set-piece battles with elaborately designed bosses. Instead of the large parties of old, though, you're basically restricted to two main characters, with a rotating cast of captured monsters filling out your three-person squad. This story has more settings, but a smaller cast than the one that came before it.

Despite the more open-ended structure and millennium-hopping plot, XIII-2 somehow manages to feel less epic than its predecessor. The small party and asinine side-quests make the game's world-ending threat feel less threatening, and the story is a Mobius strip of nonsensical time travel clap-trap and absurd characters that, like many Final Fantasies before it, often seems like an unintentional parody of anime.

Final Fantasy XIII-2 takes place 100 years after Final Fantasy XIII. Society has collapsed and humans now eke out an existence via hunting and primitive agriculture. Serah and Noel help as best they can, but it's a hard life on the steppes and monsters are a constant threat.

CINEMATIC ACTION!

Square-Enix

FFXIII's combat system, the best thing to happen to this series since 1997, returns this time around with only minor changes. Once again, characters earn Crystogen points in each battle and put them towards unlocking and leveling up various combat roles. Commandos deal the most damage, Synergists buff your team's offensive skills, Saboteurs undermine opponents with poison and other spells, and Sentinels soak up damage, while Medics heal the party.

Ravagers might play the most important role, as their quick, constant attacks can be combined with the skills of a Commando to fill up an enemy's "stagger meter." Even the strongest foe breaks down when staggered, as their reactions are slowed and every hit inflicts far more damage than usual.

The dominant strategy in most battles is to stagger your enemies as quickly as possible and then pour on the pain with a frontline of Commandos. Still, figuring out the best way to stagger each new boss or monster type adds a bit of the type of strategy that is often missing from more straightforward RPG battles.

Once again you can juggle these various character roles and permutations through the Paradigm system, which lets you preset six combinations for your party and easily switch between them during a fight with the press of a button. Different permutations come in handy for different situations; a three-Sentinel lineup might be useful when facing foes with an incredibly strong spell or special move, while a Synthesist/Saboteur/Sentinel troika can provide a quick edge at the start of battle. Juggling these different lineups forces you to be active and attentive during battle, and remains a welcome change of pace from the patient, polite turn-based combat of old.

FFXIII-2's improvements on its predecessor shouldn't be understated—the fact that the eternally aggravating Vanille is spoken of more than seen, for instance, makes a huge difference. But overall it's not as big of an improvement as it could be. The emphasis on extravagantly rendered cut-scenes and pedantic dialogue that describes every plot point in exhausting detail still feels old, especially when compared to recent RPGs like Dark Souls and Skyrim that let players unravel the story at their own pace. And while the superfluous, Bioware-style dialogue trees do represent a change, it's one that amounts to a pointless diversion.

As more games tentatively embrace subtlety, the "show and tell and tell and TELL" mentality of FFXIII-2 comes off as an outdated throwback to a bygone era. It's less a new videogame from 2012 than a curio dug up in a time capsule.

Final Fantasy XIII-2 takes place 700 years after Final Fantasy XIII. Lightning is fighting an outrageously powerful purple-haired villain who looks like a member of Tokio Hotel. It's the end of time but also the start of Noel's journey. He leaps into a time gate, floating back to New Bodhum where he first meets Serah, triggering Final Fantasy XIII-2's complicated time-hopping plot. The only time it can't travel to? Whenever Final Fantasy last mattered.